Ever wish you had your own personal creativity guru? You know – part muse, part motivator – someone who can help you kick-start your ideas and define your work-life vision?
Well, you’ve found him.
Recently announced Leadercast Live 2016 speaker, Chris Barez-Brown is on a mission to bring greater imagination, creative energy and just plain fun to the business world. He believes that all of us can unlock our creativity – it just takes some guidance in mind-expanding thinking, preparing the right environment, and practicing some playful activities to develop our creative muscles.
“We build our creative confidence based on the way we interpret our experiences,” says Chris. “Our perception of our creative performance is more important than the reality. Other people may have an impact on our beliefs short-term, but it’s ultimately under our control.”
Perhaps you don’t think of yourself as creative. Or maybe you don’t believe that creativity drives business or bottom-line results. Maybe you think all that stuff is for designers, musicians, artists, writers – not for organizational teams and business leaders. But Chris argues that creativity is an essential ingredient to great leadership. In fact, he says he’s proof of the power of creative confidence and how it can shape your life. He was just a kid when he appeared in his first theater performance, and he felt so good about it that it has driven his career trajectory. He never bothered about what the critics may have thought!
Chris spent 10 years as the creative training guru at ?What If!, the world’s largest innovation consultancy. Today, he leads the creative leadership company, Upping Your Elvis, renowned in Fortune 500 circles for its high-impact, like-nothing-you’ve-experienced-before workshops. Chris helps leaders and their teams uncork their creativity to drive extraordinary new business ideas and solve challenges in uniquely successful ways. Chris’ often audacious and definitely unconventional approach has facilitated some of the best innovations you’ve come to know from companies including Coca-Cola, Diageo, Nike, SONY, Roche, HSBC, J&J, Harrah’s, and more.
Based on one of Chris’ most popular Leadercast Now videos, Building Your Creative Confidence, here are just a few of the steps to “upping your creativity:”
1. Rely on your own perception and definition of success. Creativity takes a certain kind of energy and freedom. You won’t always have the most innovative idea in the room, so you’ve got to have confidence in who you are and your full range of capabilities. Some days you will have positive interpretation cycles and other times you will have negative cycles; the goal is to make sure you’re seeing the whole picture based on your own interpretation and values.
2. Experiment more. Create more opportunities to be creative every single day. They don’t have to be “big, risky things,” says Chris, “just simple stuff, like how do I make this meeting more interesting, more fun, more energetic?” Constantly experiment and you’ll have more chances to receive reinforcement that you are, indeed, creative. Do not save your creativity for special occasions!
3. Be flexible about the way you interpret your “performance.” Creativity doesn’t always go right, so when it goes wrong, learn from it and chalk it up to a great experiment. Just like in everything we do, creativity takes practice. Every time you try something creative, you can always find a reason why it was even a little bit bold or innovative. So if you get flexible with your perspective, it will build your confidence.
4. Know this: ultimately, your belief is yours. Other people can impact your creative confidence in the short-term, but you get to control how their input affects you long-term. Will you let it derail you or will you let it push you beyond your creative boundaries?
Want to experience Chris’ eclectic, high-energy style and tap into a more confident and creative version of YOU? Join us at Leadercast LIVE on May 6, 2016.
• Attend Leadercast Live in Atlanta
• Bring Leadercast Live to Your Community
• Attend a Simulcast Site
